Editor’s Note: Bob Caldwell served as grand marshal of Monday’s Memorial Day parade held in Wilmington. This profile was originally written by Chaplain Paul Butler of the Wilmington Veterans Post 49 – American Legion for a recent newsletter.
It was on the 26th of May 1925, in the little farmhouse just outside Samantha, Ohio, that Harold “Squibb”, a dairy farmer, and Elizabeth Caldwell, along with their 2-year-old son Dean, welcomed the newest addition to the family, Robert “Bob” Wayne.
However, the young family would be disrupted five years later, by a combination of the Great Depression and the onset of Harold’s crippling arthritis. Elizabeth would have to go to work and the boys would have to move in with their maternal grandparents, on their 135-acre farm.
With no running water in the house, Bob’s number one chore was hauling water from the spring for his grandmother. There was always plenty of other jobs around the farm also, but Bob found time to trap muskrats and rabbits and hunt, after receiving his first rifle for Christmas a few years later.
Bob did not care a lot for school, but made a deal with his mother to complete his primary education at Leesburg High School in exchange for her gold watch. He joined the Guard while in school, accumulated enough credits to graduate early, and after enlisting, headed to San Diego — mom’s gold watch in hand — in an overcrowded rail car, to become a Marine.
Eight weeks of intensive training and the young Caldwell was anxious and ready to do battle with the Japanese in the Pacific theater.
Of the 70 men in Platoon 114, Bob’s boot camp platoon, 66 were assigned to the 5th Division, which would land on Iwo Jima a few months later, while Bob, along with the other three Marines, were assigned to a replacement detachment.
Aftera few weeks at Fort Elliot, he boarded a ship for Guadalcanal. Nine months on the small island and Bob was off for another island called Okinawa, where he come up against the most fierce Japanese resistance he would encounter during the war.
The war came to an end in August 1945, but not for Corporal Caldwell.
He would spend nine months on mainland China before returning — by transport ship to San Diego and by train to Cincinnati — to finally be reunited with his mother and father on Mother’s Day 1946.
Back to civilian life in Samantha. Now, it was time to find a job.
Bob worked at several occupations, including driving a dump truck at a stone quarry, before going to work for Cincinnati Milacron. He spent 17 years in the shop before landing the position of security guard at the Wilmington plant, retiring after a total of 37 years with the company.
Bob is a 50-year member of the American Legion, former member of the Clinton County Veterans Service Commission, Masonic Lodge, and member of Marine Corps League Detachment 995, which bears the name of his best friend throughout school, Marine Pvt. Robert B. Crites, killed in action on Iwo Jima.
Bob’s three sons are also veterans of military service.
